Probation officers have voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action over Government plans to privatise the service.

Revealing the results of a ballot at its AGM in Llandudno, the
National Association of Probation Officers (Napo) said 84.4 per
cent of members supported strike action on a 46 per cent turnout. A
date for the strike is yet to be fixed.

The union previously registered a trade dispute over Justice
Secretary Chris Grayling's proposals to transfer most of the
service to private firms such as G4S and Serco.

Ian Lawrence, Napo's general secretary, said: "We now have a
mandate for industrial action that we shall be pursuing with vigour
but as always Napo will be seeking to avoid this if possible by way
of further negotiations with ministers."

If a strike goes ahead, it will be only the third time in its
101-year history that Napo will have taken such action.

Mr Lawrence said: "Napo does not take strike action lightly, but
we strongly believe that decimating the award-winning public sector
Probation Service and selling it off to the likes of G4S and Serco
will result in increased re-offending rates, a lack of continuity
in risk management, and will see the privateers making huge profits
at the expense of victims, offenders and taxpayers.

"We want to raise public awareness of what these proposals will
mean to the communities and put a halt to Grayling's plans until
there has been a full review of his plans and a proper
parliamentary debate."

Napo previously claimed negotiations with the Ministry of
Justice over its Transforming Rehabilitation reforms had been
"seriously compromised" as a result of the department's
"interference" in the consultation on the proposals.

A package of £450 million-worth of contracts has been offered to
private and voluntary sector organisations, covering the
supervision of 225,000 low and medium-risk offenders each year on a
payment-by-results basis.

Contracts are to be split across 20 English regions and one
Welsh region, while the National Probation Service (NPS), a new
public sector organisation, will be formed to deal with the
rehabilitation of 31,000 high-risk offenders each year.

More than 700 organisations from across the world have expressed
interest in the contracts, the MoJ said, including hundreds of
British firms.

A Government-wide review is being conducted of all contracts
held by Serco and G4S, two of the country's biggest private
providers of public services.

The audit, triggered by revelations that both firms had
overcharged the Government for criminal-tagging contracts, prompted
calls for the Ministry of Justice to abandon its plans to privatise
the probation and prison service.

But it emerged that Mr Grayling intended to allow Serco and G4S
to bid for the probation service - though the firms will not be
awarded anything until the Government's audit is completed.

Napo has called for the proposals to be tested and claims recent
reports from America, where some states have already outsourced
their probation service, suggest there are concerns about how it
operates.